If you still need me
by mistleglow
Summary: Nico di Angelo is a homeless boy with nowhere to go and no reason to live. That is, until a boy named Jason Grace wanders into his life, and offers him a place to stay- at his cozy apartment with his roommate, Piper. But things start to get messy when Nico meets Percy Jackson, and falls badly for him. Too bad for him, Jason doesn't appreciate that too much.


It is a general acknowledgement and agreement that crying in front of people is utterly humiliating, and no one likes to really show weakness in public, right? Well that's exactly why Nico chose to do it in the pouring rain. Sitting on the damp bench with his arms wet and sticky from the humid rain and his dark thick hair plastered to his face, the teenager spent most of the afternoon crying out his feelings.

I mean, don't get me wrong, Nico was not one to cry at such little things-well actually, he _never cried at all_. The last time he could remember, it was at his sister's death. But that was six years ago. And a lot had changed since then. For one, Nico had basically turned into a hobo, scavenging the streets for food, and searching for new places or benches to sleep on. After spending his last few dollars on some salty caramel candy, knowing perfectly well that he just couldn't pay off his rent that had been due two weeks ago, he had resorted to sulking around one particular street, his stomach rumbling, and utterly and completely given up on life. Of course, there was always the option to beg or to busk, but he couldn't play any instruments, and he would rather die than to stoop so low as to beg for sympathy. As he rubbed at his eyes furiously, an umbrella was suddenly propped over his head. He backed up in surprise, and blinked. Was someone…was someone taking _pity _on him?

He made a little hiss of annoyance and anger, as now his tears could be told from the rain, and as pity was the _last thing _he wanted or needed, and the concerned face above him certainly wasn't helping with his annoyance.  
"What are you doing?" he tried to say as snarkily as possibly, but it just came out as a raspy cough. He couldn't remember the last time he had drunk water. Of course there was the rain, but it was completely unhygienic (yes it was ironic that he refused to be unhygienic despite being a muddy homeless boy). He expected the boy in front of him to immediately snatch his umbrella away and curse under his breath in irritation of the homeless boy who was both dirty, wet, _and _had quite an attitude, but he didn't really care. He was going to die anyway, either from starvation, pneumonia or malnutrition. He wasn't going to wait around for someone to save him.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Nico snarled. "I don't need your sympathy…" he glanced up. "Or your stupid umbrella either, _golden boy,_" The boy in front of him rose a single eyebrow, and instead of snapping at him, he threw his head back and laughed.  
"Golden boy?" he repeated, clearly amused. Nico watched as the rain subsided, and watched as the water remnants dripped off of the other boy's blonde hair. The boy bent over to shake his head to rid his hair of the water, and rose back up, to meet Nico's eyes with a smirk. He was nowhere near shameless enough to admit that it looked absolutely_ hot_. The brunette shook his head, and mulled over the endless amount of snarky replies in his head.  
Instead, he just said, "What are you doing here anyway? The rain's gone, so I no longer need an umbrella. Not that I even needed one in the first place," He swung his feet off the bench like a little kid. The blonde boy pursed his lips.

"You're obviously in a bad place, man." He peered at the other boy, who pulled up his shirt so that it covered the top half of his face, but left his stomach bare. It was obviously a cold day-well, a cold day for anyone not wearing a thick sweater or jacket.

"Yeah, well what do you plan on doing about that?" Nico muttered, staring harshly back at him. He shifted uncomfortably.  
"I was just wondering if you wanted to…you know, if you wanted to, and if you didn't have anywhere to stay, you could maybe stay over at my apartment until you get back on your feet. Me and my roommate have a spare room you could stay in, if you'd like," The other boy rubbed the back of his neck uncertainly. He glanced sideways at the darker haired boy, as if anticipating a bad reaction. Nico's face immediately soured, and was about to make a scathing comment about being able to handle himself fine, when he had a think about what he looked like.

Obviously he wasn't fine. He had that kind of starved, deprecating look, with sunken in cheeks and a small, fragile, bony frame, obviously from lack of food and nutrition. He had dark, shaggy messy hair that stuck to his face from the rain, and sunken in, lifeless hollow eyes, from lack of sleep. His only belongings were a small plastic bag with a newspaper, a lighter, a ball of string and an extra singlet (that he was pretty sure he found somewhere) in it, apart from the shirt on his back and the faded, torn jeans he was wearing. He obviously wasn't in a position to argue the other boy on this.

"I don't even know your name," he said lamely, and the elder teen just grinned.

"Jason," he almost reached out a hand, but immediately retracted it after mulling over in his head what would happen. Nico noticed he was holding two grocery bags full of cupcakes, chips, milk, pancake batter, donuts, eggs and all sorts of good. His stomach rumbled as he eyed the food. Jason set the bags down on the bench and laughed. He propped the umbrella over them so that it would stay there, in case the light shower of rain turned into another heavy downpour, and sat down next to the damp brunette, despite the seat being wet. Nico liked the fact that he either didn't know, or didn't care.  
"You hungry?" Jason asked cautiously, and opened the bag. Noticing Nico's eye twitch, he ripped open a package of donuts and passed it to the other boy.

"Not the best sort of food to eat after not eating for a long time, but-" Nico snatched up one of the sugary things before Jason could finish, and wolfed it down within seconds.

"More," he croaked, and Jason patiently passed him another one. Gods. He missed the taste of proper, sugary food.

"Hey listen, if you're going to take me up on my offer, we should probably just head to my place now, where it's drier," he glanced nervously at Nico, who looked down at the ground.

"If you're just taking a homeless person in so you can take advantage of their body, that's not really nice," Nico said drily, much to Jason's embarrassment.

"Dude! I didn't mean it like that." He said, his cheeks burning.

"I was just wondering if you needed to, I don't know, get back up on your feet-" he stood up messily, almost dropping the box of donuts, but Nico reached out and pulled on the elder teen's sleeve.

"I was just joking," he said quietly, and met the other boy's clear blue eyes.

"th'you," he murmured, and Jason paused.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I-I want to come with you," he said crossly, and Jason slowly started to grin. Nico noticed the way the scar on his upper lip seemed to disappear whenever he smiled.

"Then we'd better get going," the elder teen said, picking up the umbrella. Nico got to his feet awkwardly and stared worriedly at the sky. Suddenly, a crack of lightning appeared, closely followed by the thunder, and the rain started to come down in heavy sheets. He lifted the umbrella over both their heads, but the wind became too strong, and lifted it away.

"_Shit!_" he muttered under his breath.

"Hey, um-you." Jason yelled over the wind, after letting loose a long string of curses.

"Nico! It's...it's Nico!" The darker haired boy replied, and lifted his plastic bag carrying his very few possessions over his head.

"Sorry, about this, but…" Jason engulfed Nico into a huge bear hug, much to the other boy's anger at being manhandled so, to shield him from the winds, and was basically carrying him by the time they reached Jason's apartment. They were both mud-ridden, badly scratched (it was a long story) and dead-tired, but Jason warned, "Don't be tired too soon. Me and my roommate, Piper, are hosting a birthday party for our best friend, so it's going to be a long night. That's what the groceries are for," he explained, as he tiredly walked up the stairs to his apartment.

"I can't believe how crazy those winds were," he slumped into the wall, and Nico struck out his hands as some kind of cautious barrier over Jason, who smiled, and muttered, "So you _do _care about me,"

Nico pushed Jason over in indignation, and hissed, "Dream about it," much to the elder teen's amusement.

"Anyway, if you want to eat, you'll have to stay for the party," he waved his hands, while watching the smaller boy's horrified reactions.

"Which means you'll have to _meet people_," he slowly smiled, which induced a kind of strangled sound from the brunette.

"What, do you expect me to meet people looking like this?" Nico demanded, and Jason sized him up and down.

"Gods, you look like you went dumpster diving. Alright, go take a shower first, but we'll have to sneak you in past everyone. But I don't think a lot of people have arrived yet," the blonde haired boy said, as he fumbled around his pocket for his keys.

"Do you have a spare change of clothes?" Jason asked, but the other boy just shook his head.

"Do you have _anything_?" he frowned. To his defence, the younger boy burst out, "I have a lot of…stuff! Like this string. And this lighter. Do you know how hard it is to come by a lighter? And look at that, a newspaper!" he shoved it in Jason's face, which made him laugh.

"What an impressive collection," he commented, which made Nico stick out his tongue. But even a skeleton-looking thing like him couldn't pull off the scary tongue-sticking thing without looking cute. Maybe that was why Jason's heart thumped a little louder and a little faster after that, but he ignored it. This little guy was going to be his new brother, he decided. 'I'm going to take care of him, like the family I never had,' he thought.  
As he pushed open the door, he was greeted almost immediately by a radiant girl with choppy brown hair and kaleidoscopic eyes.

She looked pretty in a kind of 'I could steal your man, kill him, _and _skateboard out of here with style' kind of way. Nico disliked her immediately. He guessed it was because he hated having any interactions with girls, especially pretty ones. Mostly because they reminded him of the kind of beauty Bianca once had. It wasn't fair that these girls could have that privilege when Bianca couldn't. He scanned his new surroundings in an attempt to not have to look at this girl. The room was warm and had a kind of merry, festive feel to it. There were a lot of lights hung up, and he could smell something really good coming from the oven. The place wasn't really big, but it was cozy, in a kind of messy, happy family kind of way.

"Did you get the stuff?" The girl asked, breaking Nico's concentration. She had a kind of soothing, rich tone, which almost made Nico buckle at the knees. What the hell. She snatched the groceries out of Jason's arms, and when she looked at what was inside, she playfully punched him in the arm.

"Sweet!" She grinned. "You even got the mints I liked," she stuffed them in her pocket, while digging through the rest of the groceries.

She suddenly looked up, and tapped her nose, winking at him.  
"This is our little secret, alright, _sparky_?" To which Nico accidentally snickered out loud. She turned to look at him. Nico immediately started to panic. _Shitshitshit_. He was meant to be invisible.

_Oh gods, she's going to sneer at me and ask what a piece of garbage is doing here,_ Nico thought sourly. _She's going to attack me for laughing at her._  
"Who's your friend?" The girl asked warmly, sparking disbelief in Nico's eyes.

"Uhh…this is Nico," Jason scratched his head.

"I kind of picked him up half way back from shopping. He doesn't really have anywhere to stay right now, so I let him crash here for the while. That okay?" Jason popped open a soda, and seemed to have a staring battle with the other girl.

_What is wrong with you? _Her eyes seemed to say. _You brought a piece of filth into our home. We were meant to be living in peace. _She popped open a soda too, and stared at him over it as she quietly sipped.

_I don't actually know why I brought him here. I know, he's gross. _His eyes said helplessly. _Spur of the moment decision I guess,_ he shrugged. At least, that's how the conversation went down in Nico's head. The girl finally broke eye contact, and grinned at the dark haired boy.  
"Yeah, that's no problem! You can stay here as long as you like. Just know that we kind of have established a few, ah, rules around here." She smiled devilishly at Jason, then turned back to the brunette, who was truthfully a bit freaked out.

"Okay, so the toilet down the hall doesn't work at anytime past five, so we don't go in that one. Shower times between nine in the morning and two in the afternoon are mine, and between two thirty and six are Jason's." she snatched up a bagel and started breaking off small pieces and tossing them into her mouth in a really distracting manner.  
"Oh, also know that it's bad to sneak into Jason's room at any time past one. He can get…freakishly attached." She shuddered. A single ebony eyebrow rose into the air.

"Attached?" Nico repeated cautiously. He wondered what this girl was doing in Jason's room after one o'clock, but he didn't voice it aloud.

"Yeah, you know, over-emotional. You walk in, looking for your missing shoe, and the guy starts hugging you, and crying about random things, like why gravel isn't soft and things like that," Piper shrugged, and Nico turned to stare at Jason, who in turn, just shrugged, but didn't deny it.

"There's a sign on my door for a reason," he stuck his tongue out childishly at the other girl, who in turn laughed.

"You know I don't follow rules, Sparky," she tugged on one of her caramel braids, and waved a hand over Nico.

"If he's staying for the party, he better get cleaned up. The shower's in the room to the left down the corridor," she smiled.

"I'll prepare you a spare change of clothes," Piper smiled warmly. Nico shifted uncomfortably. "Thanks," he said awkwardly, and proceeded to shuffle down the corridor.

"And where are you getting these spare change of clothes from, exactly?" Jason rose an eyebrow, and Piper just snickered.

"From your wardrobe, of course, what do you think?" and before Jason could scold her, she disappeared into one of the rooms. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and yelled, "Just a sec!"

He quickly cleared the table of mugs, used tissues, empty soda cans and magazines, and went to open the door. It was there, that he was immediately greeted by a boy with dark hair, a lanky build and a mischievous grin.

"Miss me?" the boy leaned against the doorframe, and stared back at the blonde boy.


End file.
